By Tara Martinelli

Confidence used to be an admired, coveted and desirable characteristic. A confident person would stand out as a role model to others. We would meet someone who exuded self-awareness and self- love, and we so badly wanted feel that way about ourselves. However, somewhere down the road, people have grown to fear their own confidence due to others’ tendencies to judge it as something ugly and obnoxious. There is no reason we should bash the confidence we see in others; rather, we should praise it.

Before I continue, I would like to be clear that I do not think that arrogance should be an admired trait. There is a very fine line between confidence and arrogance — just look at Beyoncé and Kanye West. But oftentimes, people are so afraid of being the latter that they do not even put themselves on the spectrum and decide to lead a self-conscious, passive life. Of course, we all have aspects about ourselves that we would change if we could, but these are not the qualities we should focus on. As college students, having confidence in ourselves is more important now than ever before.

This is the time when we need to take ownership of ourselves. As freshmen, we are thrown into an environment as total individuals for the first time. The first, and most obvious situation in which confidence can come in handy is when working on your first group project. There is always that point in time when work is being divided and everyone has their individual preferences but no one wants to speak up. People often feel by speaking up they are creating a conflict or being confrontational. This is when the fear of being seen as confident becomes dangerous.

There is a big difference between being confrontational and standing up for yourself, but for whatever reason, many people have a hard time making this distinction.

Here is my advice on this matter: Whether it’s in the classroom or among friends, stand up for yourself! If someone says something that bothers you or hurts your feelings, you need to say something. Unfortunately, no matter how much we wish we could be, no one is a mind-reader. People will not know how they affect you if you don’t speak up. As my mom and Dr. Phil always say, you need to teach people how to treat you. If you show that you are not going to tolerate people speaking down to you or making you feel like less than who you are, people will get the message and show you the respect that you deserve.

You should not only be confident in the formal settings of class or in interviews. We all should feel great about ourselves in every aspect of our lives. I have never understood why, when with a group of friends, it so frequently turns into a roast of ourselves.

I feel like we complain about everything, from the size of our bottoms to the number of strands of hair we have on top of our heads. When someone gives you a compliment, it’s almost expected of you to turn it into a self-deprecation session. If someone tells me that my hair looks nice today, I sometimes feel like it’s expected of me to quickly discuss how it actually looks terrible and desperately needs to be washed, colored, shaved or anything that could fix the rat’s nest clearly forming on my head. A simple thank you would make everyone in the situation feel happier, but nobody wants to be asked, “Oh, so you think you’re really pretty?” by the Regina George their lives.

We all have our moments when we make a mistake and feel like the most horrible person in the world, but at the end of the day, we have to remember that we all have something about ourselves that we love.

Let’s stop hiding our favorite things about ourselves. Let’s be happy for each other and build each other up. Enough of this insecurity nonsense, let’s make confidence sexy again.